It was one of the most iconic moments of Princess Diana’s fully iconic 36 years of life—her dance at the White House on November 9, 1985 with actor John Travolta. But it turns out Diana actually had a spin around the dance floor with another famous actor from the 1980s who is still very much working today, a dance that doesn’t maybe generate as many headlines as Travolta's, but is notable nonetheless: her dance with actor Tom Selleck.
This week, Selleck released his memoir, You Never Know, which came out on Tuesday. It turns out that Selleck almost declined a dance with the Princess of Wales, who was in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Prince Charles, and at the White House for a banquet thrown by President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan. In his memoir, Selleck recounted how he ended up dancing with Diana—and how it almost didn’t happen at all.
At the time, Selleck was filming Magnum, P.I. in Hawaii and wasn’t sure if he could even make it to D.C. in the first place for the event. But his publicist told him “Look, this is Princess Diana’s personal guest list, and there’s only three actors on it—you, Clint Eastwood, and John Travolta.” So, needless to say, Selleck made it to the White House that night.
Selleck wrote that he and Eastwood attempted to keep a low profile while Travolta and Diana shared their memorable dance. “We slipped away from all the dancers and moved to a spot slightly around the corner,” Selleck wrote, per People. “By now, John and Princess Di were dancing to an up-tempo number and rocking out. Everybody else stopped dancing and formed a circle around them, clapping their hands.”
But when Travolta and Diana began a second dance, a British woman approached Selleck and urged him to cut in on the duo and ask Diana to dance, fearing that Travolta and Diana’s second turn on the dance floor could “start rumors.” Selleck wrote “Clint and I said nothing,” before the woman reiterated “Mr. Selleck, you must step in and replace him.”
In a loud voice, Selleck said he declared “I’m not cutting in on John Travolta!” The woman “was not too pleased,” he continued, and, while he didn’t end up cutting in on Travolta, he did step in before the two could embark on a third dance.
Selleck found Diana to be “lovely, and there was a very shy quality about her in spite of her being well-schooled in the art of conversation,” he said. In an interview with Town & Country, Selleck said that, while he doesn’t often get starstruck, Diana dazzled him: “Oh yeah, I was starstruck,” he told the outlet, adding that he apologized to her for his lack of skills on the dance floor, revealing that he “skipped cotillion” at dance school.
“All I could do dancing was box step like we did in high school dances, a box step and a dip,” he said. “And I wasn’t about to dip with Princess Di! So I just talked. But she was very gracious.” He added of the experience, “It was certainly memorable.”
Selleck said, per Hello, that he was “anxious” to meet the royal couple, but said Diana was “charming, graceful, and beautiful”; he praised Charles’ ability “of making you feel like you were important to him in your moment together.” Of the princess, “I gotta say, she seemed to be having the time of her life,” Selleck said. “I was relieved she talked most of the time. Let’s just say it was not my finest hour as a conversationalist.”
As Selleck danced with Diana, his wife (then girlfriend) Jillie Mack got to dance with Charles. “The prince danced with my wife, who’s a Brit,” Selleck told Town & Country. “And he asked her for a second dance, so that was pretty neat for Jillie.”
As for Travolta, in the 2021 PBS special In Their Own Words: Diana, Princess of Wales, he opened up about their famous dance, revealing that it was Nancy Reagan that introduced him to the Princess of Wales—whose dark blue, off-the-shoulder Victor Edelstein dress that night became memorialized as “the Travolta dress” in his honor. “About 10 o’clock at night, Nancy Reagan tapped on my shoulder and said, ‘The princess, her fantasy is to dance with you,’” Travolta realled. “‘Would you like to dance with her tonight?’ And I said, ‘Well, of course.’”
As previously mentioned, the two danced not just once, but twice. “It was a storybook moment,” Travolta said. “We bowed when it was over, and, you know, she was off, and I was off, and my carriage turned into a pumpkin.”
